


def not a democracy

by deniigiq



Series: Inimitable Verse [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Babysitting, Childcare, Coup d'état, Gen, Identity Reveal, M/M, Team Bonding, Team Red, Team as Family, sibling dynamics, yes I mean it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 15:14:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16518929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: He started to pull back to tell Angel, ‘sorry, no can do. Your fam’s too fucking weird for me to cope with. I’ll just pay you back in cash,’ when the tiny thing at his hip went dead still and snapped her head up to look him in the eye.“Where does the web come from?” she asked, “Is it your butt?”Peter looked up at the wall behind the child and considered all his options.“So, I’m not sure this is gonna work out,” he observed evenly.(Peter babysits Little Spidey's sister for a night and the integrity of Team Red is temporarily thrown into chaos.)





	def not a democracy

**Author's Note:**

> the folks on tumblr are killing me with ideas. This little disaster is the result of Peter trying to keep Little Spidey from embarrassing the shit out of him in Chap 11 of Relativity. He promises he'll babysit her sister to buy her silence. 
> 
> So here we are, babysitting. If you haven't read Relativity or Inimitable, I very strongly recommend that you do that first, because this nonsense will be even more nonsense to you if you haven't.

“ _You’re_ Spiderman?” Little Spidey’s sister squeaked in glee, with her hands over her mouth.

Peter was pretty sure that was his soul emptying out the side of his head. Thankfully it had the gauze stuffed in his left ear to leak into. Maybe he could wring that shit out later in the sink to recover what was left of his dignity. He could only turn slowly to give Little Spidey wide eyes and mouth ‘what the fuck?’ She shrugged a little.

Useless.

“You’re, uh, not what we were expecting,” Little Spidey’s other sister, the one with the long hair, noted nervously.

Peter did not drop his eyes from Little Spidey’s. She cleared her throat, pursed her lips, and glanced meaningfully back over to her siblings to remind him of his sacred duty and promise.

Oh, right.

“What, uh. Were you expecting exactly?” he tried, going for civil but crashing into annoyed on the way down.

“A bodybuilder,” Little Spidey’s sister gushed. “Like a lightweight champion. A gazillion abs!”

Peter blinked at her. She was like a tinier, more aggressive version of Little Spidey and he was so awed that such a thing could exist in the world that he had to click his jaw closed before he could fully appreciate what the child had just said.

“Sorry, you thought I was gonna come in here with like, no shirt?” he clarified.

“Yeah,” the Littlest Spidey said in reverence of the idea, “With a bazillion abs. How many abs do you got?”

Peter’s gut instinct was to say ‘one’ to be a contrary piece of shit, but the look that Little Spidey was giving him was terrifying.

“Alma, no one goes around asking you how many abs you got, so why the hell do you think it’s alright to ask this guy, huh?” she snapped, redirecting her scolding to the shortest member of the current party. Alma, the Littlest Spidey in all the land, was not dissuaded. She wriggled out of the eldest sister’s grip to grab Peter’s wrists and start poking and prodding. He started to pull back to tell Angel, ‘sorry, no can do. Your fam’s too fucking weird for me to cope with. I’ll just pay you back in cash,’ when the girl went dead still and snapped her head up to look him in the eye.

“Where does the web come from?” she asked, “Is it your butt?”

Peter looked up at the wall behind the child and considered all his options. He turned back to Little Spidey and her sister and appreciated their dual horror for a second.

“So, I’m not sure this is gonna work out,” he observed evenly.

“I am so fucking sorry,” Angel’s elder sister blurted out, falling over herself to recollect their errant sibling. Little Spidey sighed.

“We had a deal, girl,” she said darkly.

Alma remembered this deal and went stiff as a corpse, then latched onto Peter’s wrists with twice as much vigor.

“No!” she barked.

“You said you’d be good,” Little Spidey reminded her, “And we agreed that—”

“No!” Alma shrieked. “I’ll be good! I’ll apologize. I’m sorry, Mr. Spiderman. You don’t have to tell me where all your abs and webs are.”

Uh.

Peter stared at Little Spidey for how to fucking proceed, what the fuck, someone help him. Little Spidey continued to be unhelpful, with her arms folded across her chest and her chin tipped sternly up towards her sister. The poor thing was starting to get upset.

Fuck.

God.

He was such a fucking softie, Christ, he was turning into Wade.

“Apology accepted,” he told the top of Alma’s head. She jerked in surprise and squirmed around to look back up at him with huge eyes. “But for the record, I have special bracelets which make the web. And it comes from a lab, not inside me.”

“A lab?” Alma asked, easing her grip on his wrists and leaning back to look at his face better. “Is Spiderman a professor?”

He laughed. He could tell it eased the other two gals in the room.

“No, Spiderman is way too stupid to be a professor,” he told her.

“An acrobat?” Alma asked instead, getting more and more excited with each word, “Are you one of the circque du soleil people?”

“Nah, they’ve got talent. I’m just a dummy with a death wish.”

Alma bobbed her head in understanding, then to her sisters, stage whispered, “What’s a death wish?”

“Angel, can I talk to you?” the eldest sister suddenly blurted out. She didn’t wait for a reply before seizing Little Spidey’s arm and literally strong-arming her into the adjacent room. Peter and Alma watched them go. He looked down just as she looked back up.

“Are you really Spiderman?” she asked.

“Depends if you can keep a secret,” Peter replied.

“I can.”

Fat chance, but whatever. No one was gonna believe a nine-year-old and whatever gaggle of peers she would inevitably fess up to.

“Then I’m Spiderman.”

 

 

“Listen, Mr. uh—”

“Parker.”

“Spiderman, Mimi. His name’s Spiderman.”

Mimi was probably one of the most professional people Peter had ever met, even faced with the fucking insane situation in front of her. She considered her sister and dismissed her in milliseconds.

“Mr. Parker.”

He wondered if she would be interested in a SI position. They needed more people immune to crazy on their team.

“Angel’s told me about all the um. Help, and uh. Mentoring. That you’ve given her over the past couple months. And we are thankful that you found her before she got seriously injured being an absolute—uh,” she cleared her throat. “The point is that we’re indebted to you for looking after my sister for all this time. But really, we would prefer if she wasn’t doing anything at all—”

He felt bad for having to play her like he was about to, he really did.

“--So maybe if we can just drop this act and forget all of this, and Angel can stop being an idiot and—”

Oh, no. Honey, no. See. Threaten the unity of the team and now he couldn’t _not_ do it.

“Sorry, ma’am, are you implying that you don’t think I can watch a nine-year-old for a few hours?” he interjected.

She snapped her jaw shut and backtracked.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that there’s a bigger problem here and—”

“Oh, sorry. I think I understand, you’re saying that you think I’m a fake,” Peter interrupted again. “Really sorry, just checking here. You _do_ think I’m a fake, right? Just some rando wandering around, claiming to be Spiderman. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

Mimi was taken aback. She flicked her eyes up and down his body and referred to Angel nervously. Little Spidey had set her jaw, which meant that she was insulted and had no intention of providing any further assistance to anyone until they prostrated themselves before her and begged forgiveness and mercy. Peter was used to being the receiving end of that. He pitied the lady but held the silence.

“N-I don’t know, Mr. Parker,” Mimi said slowly. “I don’t know who you are, if I’m honest. And I don’t know if you’re really who Angel thinks you are. So you’ll forgive me if I’m wary of leaving you with my sisters. And you’ll forgive me if I ask you to leave. Now.”

Peter met her eyes.

“That’s fair,” he told her with a smile. Her shoulders dropped in relief.

Aw, lady.

He was so sorry.

“I can prove it to you,” he said.

 

 

Alma was doing an amazing impression of an excited pitbull pup. Her whole body was wriggling, nearly glowing with her enthusiasm. Peter could watch that shit all day long. He told her to take him to the nearest park (away from prying eyes) and she was doing her nine-year-old best to wrench his arm out of the socket with how hard she was pulling him towards the playtower in the middle of a pile of woodchips.

It was night. The place was abandoned and lit by streetlights. It was a comforting atmosphere to him, and probably to Little Spidey now, given the amount of time they spent bopping around sans-sun. Mimi, however, had the sensibilities and cultural awareness of a normal person and so naturally translated abandoned, empty park to Murder Scene. She kept trying to grab Angel’s arm to get her behind her.

She was a good one, this Mimi. Peter would allow her to stay. He’d give her a little in to their world, so that she’d feel safer later on down the line.

Alma stopped in front of the playtower and swung around to stare up at him expectantly, practically vibrating with excitement. Peter waited for the other two to catch up and stop arguing.

“What are you gonna do?” Alma asked breathlessly in the meantime. “Are you gonna leap over the whole thing? Can you do that? How high can you jump? Are you gonna web it up? There’s a spiderweb thingie over there, can you web that up?”

Peter grinned at her and said nothing to build the anticipation. It worked like a charm. She was just about ready to explode by the time the other two came to a stop next to them.

“Mr. Parker,” Mimi began again, exasperated. Peter pulled his shirt over his head and she gasped and jerked back in surprise.

“I _knew it_ ,” Alma cried in delight. “Two billion abs! Look, Mimi! He’s got a thousand abs!”

Fuck it, he was keeping this child. He could use that kind of self-esteem boost on a more regular basis.

He shushed Alma and knelt down with his backpack. He held it out to her.

“Can you unzip that and give me what’s in there?” he asked.

She did it with determination and without question. Mimi flinched when she plunged her little hand into the bag. She pulled out half of the suit and froze, dead still. She looked up at him slowly.

“This is like Angel’s,” she said quietly. Peter grinned at her.

“I know,” he told her, equally quietly, “I made Angel’s.”

“You _make_ them?” Alma whisper-shrieked.

“She said you thought she should have a pink one,” he noted.

“Please?”

He laughed and pulled the suit the rest of the way out of the bag.

“Turn around, I don’t wanna blind you. I got a full moon over here,” he warned. Alma whipped around and slapped her hands over her eyes. Mimi shook her head and lowered her own eyes in stunned silence, pulling Alma towards her. Little Spidey gave him a thankful look as he stripped down as fast as he could and pulled the suit on over himself.

“Have I mentioned you’re the best, lately?” she whispered.

“No. And don’t you dare say anything until I can record it for posterity,” he threatened. He cleared his throat for the other two. “You can turn around now.”

Alma frowned at the looseness of the material.

“This uh, isn’t very Spiderman-like,” she noted, reached forward to poke at the folds of the material before Mimi hitched her back by the back of her sleeve.

“Not yet,” Peter said. He took a few steps forward and tapped a finger against the spider on his chest. “Gimme a hand, huh?”

Alma was curious. She jerked out of Mimi’s grip and pressed her fingers against the spider. It didn’t do anything. She tried again and then frowned up at Peter.

“Hard click,” he instructed, “Like a button.”

“Kay,” Alma mumbled. She tried a little shove and the spider registered the activation properly. The suit snapped tight. Karen came online. She started to note the lack of webslingers and requested application for calibration.

Mimi and Alma were gobsmacked. Little Spidey was smug. Peter glanced at her and then held out his backpack to Alma again.

“All the way in the bottom,” he instructed gently.

Brave girl. She fished the mask out and stretched between her hands in amazement before handing it over. He dragged it on in one fluid motion and then twisted his neck so that it was settle in against his skin more comfortably. Karen registered the application of the mask and started talking in his ear, rather than from his chest.

“Well,” he prompted the gals in front of him, “What do you say? Convincing?”

“Yes,” Alma breathed. “Jump over the tower next!”

Mimi didn’t say anything, she dragged Alma closer to her body. Her shoulders rose and fell frantically.

“See, Mimi, I’m not that much of an idiot,” Little Spidey taunted. “I told y’all I wasn’t going out alone.”

“How—how did you—how did you find her?” Mimi asked over Angel’s bitching.

Peter cocked his head. Good question.

“Ran into her taking care of some business a while back. Girl sunk her fuc—freaking teeth in. Couldn’t shake her. Saved my life a couple times, you know. The time with the crowbar,” he threw out to Little Spidey. She snickered.

“You were so out of shape.”

“Rude,” he snipped back. “I had exams. You don’t need abs for exams.”

“Don’t need a head either, apparently.”

God.

So fucking rude.

“Nevermind, I’m voting you out of our club. Get thee to a nunnery, jerk.”

“Louis and Miles won’t vote me out, asshole.”

“I’ll bribe them.”

“Wade won’t vote me out.”

“I’ll bribe him.”

“With what?” Little Spidey asked, throwing her hands on her hips. “You’re just mad he likes me best.”

Wow.

“Wade lied to you, babycakes. He likes me best, always has and always will.”

Angel scoffed.

“What’s a Wade?” Alma interrupted, having escaped her sister to jab sharp little fingers into Peter’s side and to pinch, then snap the material of the suit against his skin. He jerked back reflexively, which fed her fascination.

“Wade’s a Deadpool,” Little Spidey explained. Mimi threw a hand over her mouth to cover her gasp. Alma didn’t know what that meant and didn’t care. She’d found one of Peter’s pockets and was digging her merry way inside it against Peter’s wishes.

“No, no, no,” Mimi hissed, “Angel, no. This is too much. That guy—he’s—”

“He loves me,” Little Spidey volleyed back. “And Hello Kitty.”

Alma lit the fuck up and paused in assaulting Peter’s arm to find the other pocket he’d hidden in the suit. Although, was it hiding if a fucking nine-year-old found them within seconds?

“Me too!” Alma cried, she tugged at Peter’s elbow. “Does the Deadpool really like Kitty like me?”

Wade’s new microwave was eye-searing pink with fucking Kitty plastered all over the buttons. He’d kept the decal the microwave came with to lovingly paste on his fridge door.

“Uh.”

“He’s got a Kitty backpack,” Little Spidey told her sister, egging her on to Mimi’s extremely obvious annoyance. Alma appeared moments away from passing out from excitement. She clutched at both Peter’s elbows.

“When Mimi and Angel go to their movie, can you call Mr. Deadpool so he can come hang out with us? Please, please, please?” she pleaded. “I’ll be the most good. The best.”

Peter watched Mimi closely. He addressed Alma.

“Well, even if I wanted to do that, I could only do it if I was actually Spiderman. And, you know, actually allowed to babysit you, so—”

“MIMI,” the tiny child roared, “SAY HE’S SPIDERMAN, MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.”

 

 

Peter was pretty sure he’d just made an enemy of Little Spidey’s older sister, but he couldn’t feel too bad about it because he never even wanted to be there to begin with. He even graciously allowed the tiny spider monkey to do her shrieking and squealing around his own apartment so that Little Spidey’s mama could have a couple hours of rare peace.

He was performing a service to all of them, really. They should be grateful.

“What’s this one mean?” Alma asked him, holding out a quartz crystal to him over the counter.

“It enhances the things other ones around it do,” he told her patiently.

She nodded sagely and then vanished back over to his front window. He cracked another egg into the pan on the stove.

“What’s this one do?”

Obsidian.

“Helps ward off negativity,” he told her.

She was gone again.

He wondered if Little Spidey was going to murder him for teaching her baby sister minor witchcraft.

 

 

“Can we watch a scary movie?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Gives me anxiety.”

“Oh. What’s anxiety?”

“You know when you’re having a dream and you feel like you’re falling and you kick the bed right before you wake up?”

“Oh. Yeah!”

“That, but all the time.”  

“Oh.”

A beat.

“Okay, can we watch something about witches?”

 

 

“Are you dying?” Wade asked from the kitchen, definitely having broken Peter’s lock again.

The child was gone, scrambled off the couch before Peter could even lift his head. And Wade was standing on the counter with a knife in hand before he could get up off the couch. Alma was fearless.

“You’re a Deadpool,” she accused Wade cheerfully with a finger pointed at him. Wade took a step back and thumped his head against the wood of the cabinets up there. Peter was surprised that there was even enough room for him to stand. It wasn’t a deep counter to begin with.

“Pete, what is this? I thought you were dying,” Wade demanded, without taking his eyes off the threat in front of him. The threat who was very invested in the pink soles of his new boots.

“Are these Kitty shoes?” she asked him.

“This is Little Spidey’s baby sister,” Peter introduced.

“I’m Alma! Are these Kitty shoes?”

Wade stared at Peter like he’d just killed a sheep in front of him.

“What the fuck?” he demanded.

“She likes Hello Kitty.”

“What the fuck, Spidey?” Wade repeated.

“You guys have a lot in common,” Peter offered.

“Mr. Spiderman says you got a Kitty microwave,” Alma observed gravely, “I tried to get one, but my mom said that we don’t need another microwave ‘cause ours isn’t broken. She didn’t let me put any stickers on it either.”

Wade clapped a hand over his heart.

“Now, that’s just tragic,” he informed her.

 

 

Mimi screamed upon seeing her youngest sibling perched in Deadpool’s clutches, but Peter and Little Spidey got to her fast enough that she didn’t alarm the neighbors. Alma slept on with her little fingers buried in Wade’s suit.

It soon became apparent to Mimi that Wade was not the problem here.

“I can’t live like this,” he pleaded with her tearfully, “I have a fucking reputation to uphold, ma’am. I gotta pay rent.”

Alma’s subconscious wouldn’t let go of Wade for love or money. He pulled at her and she whined and wrapped her arms around his neck even tighter. It was making him panic. Angel shook her sister violently and got whacked on the arm for it by Mimi. Mimi tried more gently, but no luck.

“Well, I guess she’s yours now,” Angel declared.

Wade made a devastated noise and tried to dig his phone out of the pocket Alma was laying on to name someone to execute his will. Peter snatched the phone of his hands and told him to suck it up. He stomped off to his bedroom and returned with a box of party supplies.

“If we’re gonna be dicks about it, then we may as well commit,” he decided.

 

 

An air horn is a valuable tool in all situations, including the ones that get you punched by a nine-year-old. And yet, despite this trauma, Alma did not want to go home. She informed Little Spidey that she was going to be the new Little Spidey and that she was going to become Peter’s sidekick and they were going to use rocks to spread justice in the name of the moon.

Wade had to leave the room because he was crying, just fucking sobbing with mirth, and Alma was so, so serious.

Angel told her to get the fuck over it, Alma couldn’t even walk a balance beam. And anyways, she had to be accepted by Spidey and approved by all members of Team Red before she was allowed to officially join.

“Kay, call them,” Alma demanded with a pout. “They’ll say yes. They’ll see how much cooler I am than you.”

Little Spidey was not threatened. Mimi was not threatened either. Wade emerged from the linen cupboard he’d crammed himself into and told Alma sagely that he’d do just that. He crouched down and let her see the text he sent to the group.

 

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : Friends we have a candidate for a new member.

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : 4’6”, 9yo, Callsign Spider Monkey [Image]

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : all in favor say aye

 

“Now we wait,” Wade told her. Angel whipped out her phone and started typing. Alma rounded immediately on Peter with a glare. Damn, girl knew how to work those intimidation tactics. He pulled out his own phone and pretended to type nervously.

 

 **S2:** Rejected on grounds of being an annoying sister

 **S4:** What’s happening now?

 **S2:** My sister wants to join TR

 **S4:** God, why

 **D2:** Rejected on grounds of being fucking 9YO, girl, where is your mom???

 **S3** : Damn, she got Dave’s rejection, that’s harsh. Spidey whats your call? I’m going with rejected on lack of experience and height. We already got Miles and Angel competing for shortest spiderman, we don’t need to up that competition.

 **S2:** I’m coming to your house

 **S4:** I’m coming too. We’re gonna break all the plates we can reach in your cabinets

 **SM:** feeling terrified

 **DD:** why are we texting

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : Red pay attention were taking a vote

 **DD:** we’re a democracy now? Fucking finally. I vote to revoke the rights and office of Wade Wilson Alias Deadpool as senior team member

 **SM:** seconded

 

Wade whacked Peter across the painful ear.

 

 **SM:** nvm

 **DD:** I sense intimidation tactics going on over there. So we remain an oligarchy then?

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : vote on the fucking ballot in front of you Red. You’re the last vote we need.

 **DD:** little old me? I dunno, what is the kid’s argument?

 **S2:** are you fucking serious old man

 **DD:** oh you don’t like that, small irritating one?

 **S3:** Angel you fucked up so bad

 **DD:** READ ME THE ENTIRE UNABRIDGED CASE

 **S4** : God, Angel. You really did that.

 **DD:** I CANNOT VOTE WITHOUT THOROUGH EXAMINATION OF THE FACTS. DOES THE CHILD HAVE REPRESENTATION?

 

Peter realized, then and there, that they had all fucked up so bad, but they could not let Alma know this, even though Mimi was coming to realize it.

“Who is DD?” she whispered. Peter cradled his head in his hands while Wade begrudgingly typed out the campaign speech Alma dictated to him.

“Daredevil,” he groaned.

“What?”

“And we’re all about to die,” Peter whimpered. “He’s a lawyer.”

Mimi stared at him.

“Are you serious?”

“Yep.”

“Holy shit.”

“I am so sorry.”

Mimi looked over Angel’s shoulder at the phone and then back to Peter.

“He’s not actually taking this seriously though, is he?”

Peter stared at her miserably.

“If it will piss someone off, for even a sliver of a second in time, Matt will do _anything_.”

 

 

 **DD:** I’m convinced. Y’all take your unanimous shit and get fucked. Welcome to the team, Spider Monkey.

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : I’m calling your husband

 **DD:** fucking do it

 

 

“Did I win?” Alma asked the circle of frustrated adults above her.

“No,” Angel snapped.

“You’re lying! Lemme see.”

“No, there’s too many bad words.”

“But I won!”

“No,” Wade told her gently, “You _have_ just made an enemy out of everyone else on the team, though. As a professional in these things, it is my most sincere advice to you to revoke your candidacy.”

“What does that mean?” Alma asked him, kind of excited at all the fancy words floating around.

“That means,” Wade told her kindly, “That I’m booking a ticket to California to break your lonely supporter’s legs in twenty minutes.”

“That’s not very nice,” Alma noted with trepidation.

Wade shrugged.

“Don’t break his legs,” she told him.

“How about we make a deal. I won’t break his legs if you say you don’t want to be on the team anymore,” Wade offered. Mimi stared at Peter in horror. Peter started apologizing vehemently with his hands. Alma slapped her hands onto her cheeks and gave the idea some thought.

“Okay, that’s fine. But I wanna meet my supporter. He sounds cool.”

Oh.

No.

Little Spidey looked out Peter’s window blankly to contain her devastation. Mimi picked up the slack.

“And I’m sure he’d love to meet you,” she told her baby sister sweetly, “But he’s all the way in California right now, which means he’s a whole three hours behind us. He’s probably eating dinner, so we can’t call him, that would be rude. Maybe we can meet him the next time he’s in New York, huh?” she begged Peter with her eyes to agree.

“Oh, yeah,” Peter told Alma with as much good-natured enthusiasm as he could muster, “His name’s Matt and he loves kids. He’d be so happy to meet you, I guarantee it.”

“Really?”

He nodded hard enough to loosen the gauze in his ear.

“Is he a superhero, too?”

“Yep,” Peter said tightly.

Alma surveyed him suspiciously. Then brightened.

“Okay, can you tell him thanks for me? We gotta go home.”

Oh thank Jesus.

 

 

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : Sad news everyone the new friend has revoked their application. Bad luck Red.

 **S3:** oh good that was a little too close for comfort

 **DD:** this is a farse of democracy

 **DD:** a front, I would say, for tyranny even.

 **DP (´** **｡** **✪ω** **✪** **｡´)** : shove it Red, I’m still calling your husband

 **DD:** I ain’t scared of him

 **S3** : Man, does no one here think before they talk

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank y'all for enduring this insanity with me I hope you were at least entertained


End file.
